Crowdsourced stationery startup Minted expands into art

Stationery startup Minted, which lets independent artists submit designs for wedding invitations, holiday cards and other correspondence and then sells the most popular creations, is now selling crowdsourced art prints as well. And the site has launched a new Pinterest-like feature, “My Boards,” that lets users “curate and share” their favorite designs.

With its expansion into prints, Minted aims to compete with art sites like 20×200, which sells limited-edition prints at low prices online. At 20×200, for example, most 11×14 prints are $60. Minted is selling prints at fixed price ranges depending on size; 11×14 prints, for instance, range from $55 to $120.

In addition to the 350 art prints for sale so far, Minted is selling customizable prints like family trees, maps and “wedding celebration art.” “Consumers have been looking for a personal connection to art for a long time,” said Minted founder and CEO Mariam Naficy in a statement. “Our customizable art not only epitomizes indie chic, but allows the consumer to make it their own by choosing colors and text personal to them and their particular space.”

All of the new art prints are also available in “several colorways, in order to allow customers to match art prints to their home décor.”

With Minted’s new “My Boards,” users can put together their own collections of stationery and art so that they can, for example, compare multiple wedding invitation designs at once. They can also share those boards to Pinterest.

Minted has raised $8 million in funding so far, including a $5.5 million Series B round in 2011. Investors include Benchmark Capital, Menlo, IDG, Google’s Marissa Mayer and Yelp cofounder Jeremy Stoppelman.